A teacher simply identified as Mr David has evaded arrest after beating a 16-year-old SS3 female student of Government Girls Science Secondary School (GGSSS), Kuje, Abuja, Christabel Mimi Henry, to a state of coma.
The victim’s mother, Stella Henry, told LEADERSHIP in an interview yesterday that Mimi who was hospitalised after the teacher hit her with an iron rod is set to undergo a scan to determine the severity of the injury.
It was learnt that Mimi who was on Friday evening beaten into a state of coma by the teacher and was rushed to the General Hospital in Kuje has regained consciousness but is set to undergo a scan to ascertain the level of injury to her head.
LEADERSHIP gathered that the teacher, a bully who is said to be notorious for abusing his power to punish by manipulating and disparaging students, has been evading arrest with the aid of the school principal, Mrs Sabina Agbuedu.
When our correspondent contacted the principal on phone to find out why she had been shielding Mr David from arrest, Mrs Agbuedu who declined comment on the matter simply asked: “Who gave you my number?”
When pressed further to speak on the incident, Mrs Agbuedu quickly cut the call.
Narrating what transpired between Mimi and the teacher, one of the students who did not want her name in print said, “It was at about 10pm and the students were having their night prep when the teacher came into the class and started flogging the students for noise-making.
“The teacher insisted on beating all the students in the class on account of an anonymous student who made the noise.
“Mimi had requested the teacher to fish out the noisemaker for punishment instead of punishing the entire class, but the angry teacher slapped her severally before picking a rod and beat her into a state of unconsciousness”.
Corroborating the the story, mother of the victim, Mrs Stella Henry, told LEADERSHIP that she received a distress call from one of the students, requesting her to visit the General Hospital, Kuje, where her daughter had been rushed to be revived after she was mercilessly assaulted and beaten with a rod by her teacher.
She expressed dismay that apart from the students who called to alert them, the school did not inform the family about the incident.
Narrating what her daughter told her after regaining consciousness, Mrs Henry said, “It was when he (the teacher) hit her that my daughter now exclaimed, ‘Jesus Christ’. He demanded to know what she meant by that. He now lifted the iron and was aiming at my daughter’s head so she shifted herself and it hit her on the shoulder.
“He lifted it again to hit her a second time, but she held the rod with her right hand and the sharp edge of the rod slashed the middle of her palm, injuring three fingers on that palm. She started bleeding but the teacher refused to give up. He held her on the right hand and slapped her severally on the face.
“When he slapped her on the face, her fellow students intervened and tried to pull her up. He hit her a second time on the same shoulder with the iron rod and pushed her and she hit the back of her head on a chair and fainted. That was the only thing she could remember.
“At around 10 pm, a group of students from the school called to alert me that I should start going to the General Hospital where my daughter who was still unconscious was admitted. I rushed to the hospital with my husband and saw her lying lifeless on the hospital bed.”
The mother further said her daughter is out of coma but because of the head she hit on the ground, the hospital has referred them to go for a scan in town.